


master plan

by Amber (popslash_archivist)



Category: Popslash
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 01:14:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18355583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/popslash_archivist/pseuds/Amber





	master plan

_"JC's clueless a lot of times ... he really is gullible."_

 

 

_i. many happy returns_

For Chris's birthday JC gave him a framed picture of the five of them in Germany. It wasn't a bad picture, Chris supposed, especially as far as the Germany pictures went. They were all sort of standing around; Justin and Joey hamming it up, Lance blushing and looking only a little frightened of the camera, JC staring off into space somewhere behind Chris's head. No one had their eyes closed or anything and they were all smiling. So yeah, it wasn't a bad picture. But it wasn't much of a present.

Chris didn't say anything about it though. JC had always been into giving gifts with 'meaning' -- at least according to him. According to everyone else, including Chris, JC was just cheap. But Chris was pretty much used to it and it was still a better gift than the luggage (luggage, for god's sake!) that Lance had given him.

"Thanks man," he told JC. "It's a nice picture."

"I've always liked it," JC said, and hugged him. He hugged like he always did, a quick squeeze and a pat on the back, his breath humming in Chris's ear.

The next time he was home Chris hung the picture up in his living room. He bashed his thumb with the hammer and had to nurse it by drinking a lot of beer and kicking Justin's ass at his new Playstation football game. Later he noticed he'd hung the picture a little crooked but by then he only had two days left at home before they went back out on tour and he had better things to do than fix it. Like sleeping. Or sitting around.

He straightened the picture anyway. He wished JC hadn't given him a picture where his braces were so obvious. Fucking Lou and his ideas on how Chris could look younger. Chris should have known that anyone who suggested dressing all of them in matching overalls wasn't someone to be trusted.

 

 

_ii. twenty-four dollars used to buy an island_

It was supposed to be a joke.

They had forty minutes left till they got to the arena and they'd already been on the bus for three hours and Chris was so bored that pretending to like JC seemed like a great idea.

"Just think about it," he told Justin, who was hunched over an X-Box controller and mostly ignoring him. "JC'll believe anything. A million dollars he'll be out here in five minutes saying -- Hey! Why aren't you listening? I'm telling you about my master plan." He nudged Justin's back with his foot.

"Fucker," Justin said. "Quit it. And also, that is not a master plan. JC will believe anything. No planning needed there. You should try someone challenging. Like Lonnie. Now that would take a master plan, man, 'cause Lonnie is on to you and your shit."

"Master. Plan." Chris said firmly. "You just watch me."

"Whatever," Justin said. "Hey! Did you just change the channel? Where the hell did my game go? Chris, you fuck!"

 

JC was lying on his bunk reading a book. He smiled when Chris sat down next to him.

"What's up?" he said.

"Nothing. Timberlake's boring. What'cha reading?"

JC started talking, pushing himself up into a sitting position. Chris grinned to himself. This was going to be so easy. He moved a little closer. JC was still talking.

Normally Chris favored the direct route when dealing with JC because it sometimes took him a while to get stuff, but he did have forty whole minutes to kill. And JC looked kind of content, sitting there talking away. Really, Chris thought, they actually didn't talk all that much. So it wouldn't hurt to drag it out a little.

He listened for a while, then put one hand on JC's knee. JC kept talking.

"Sounds really great," Chris said and pushed his hand up a little. Just a little.

JC stopped talking for a second, and then started up again. Chris let his hand linger for a moment, then he sighed and moved it away. He leaned in towards JC and smiled.

JC blinked and pushed his glasses up his nose. His eyes looked huge behind them. Chris had forgotten how blue JC's eyes were in the right light. He let his gaze drop to JC's mouth and left it there long enough for even JC to notice, then made a big show of shaking his head and looking slightly dazed.

"Sorry," he said, "got distracted for a moment. What were you saying?"

JC gave him a hesitant half-smile and started talking again, this time about the upcoming show. Chris made appropriate noises and made sure to glance at JC's mouth once in a while, just to drive his point home. JC's lips were kind of chapped. He talked an awful lot. Some of what he said was pretty interesting.

 

By the time they got to the arena JC had been out to talk to Justin twice and had come back looking a little more frazzled each time. Chris figured he could get another two, three days out of the whole plan easy, and grinned at Justin when they got off the bus. JC was still inside, gathering up all his crap.

"So much for your master plan, huh?" Justin said.

"What?"

"JC came out to talk to me about the set list. Twice. Did I think the order was ok, did I think the sound engineers would be able to handle it? That sort of thing."

"He didn't say anything about me?"

Justin laughed. "Nope. And I even said you'd been talking a lot about him lately. I think you've lost your touch, man."

"Shut up," Chris said. "Watch this." He waited till JC got off the bus, then made Justin pretend they were talking while he watched JC whenever JC looked over at him. JC didn't really seem to notice Chris's stares.

"Still not seeing anything," Justin said, interrupting their pretend conversation. "Watch a master at work and learn, you loser."

He went over to JC. "Hey man, you ready to go check out your new car?"

"What new car?" JC said, shooting a quick look at Chris. Chris frowned at him. He could already tell JC was going to fall, and in an overly obvious manner, no less, for whatever Justin was doing. And Justin was nowhere near as good as he was. It was very irritating.

"You got the note, right?" Justin said.

"What?"

"You know, how we're all getting a free Porsche from some guy in Florida who wants us to do his kid's birthday party or something."

"I--I didn't get a note," JC said. "A free car?"

"Oh yeah," Justin said, and started snickering a little. "They're gonna be here soon. You really didn't get a note?"

"No," JC said. "I wonder why I didn't. Do you think that--?" He stopped.

"You're laughing," he said. "Justin, you fucker!"

"Sorry," Justin said, and started laughing outright. "Couldn't help it, man. You should have seen your face!"

JC sighed.

Justin tried to stop laughing and mostly succeeded. "Come on," he said. "Let's go talk to Tim about that sound stuff you mentioned earlier."

"All right," JC said, and he and Justin started walking towards the sound booth. Chris watched them go, glaring at both their backs. Stupid Justin. Stupid JC. He made a mental note to make sure he arranged for someone to give Justin a six thirty a.m. wake-up call the next morning.

JC turned around, looking over his shoulder. He smiled when he saw Chris looking at him.

"I knew it!" Chris said triumphantly. Justin didn't know crap about how plans worked. Of course he didn't have the superior power of the Kirkpatrick intellect on his side, but Chris didn't feel too sorry for him.

He snagged a chapstick from one of the makeup guys and stuck it in JC's bag. Then he went to find Joey, who could always be counted on for a willingness to goof off until soundcheck.

 

 

_iii. what you don't see_

There were a lot of things about JC Chris couldn't understand. The whole wine thing, for instance. JC went on and on about it, stuff about bouquet and legs and stems and it was actually pretty damn embarrassing going to charity dinners and watching him wander around with his nose stuck in a glass, occasionally lifting it out to say stupid ass things like, "1989 was a very good year, you know, " and "actually, French grapes are California grapes." He couldn't just drink Red Bull and vodka like a normal person, oh no. JC was all about *class.*

And that was another thing Chris didn't get. For someone that was all about class, JC sure didn't date like it. He had two kinds of people that would drift in and out of his life. Occasionally there were girls with big hair and nice breasts and absolute rocks for brains, the kind of girls who would blink uncomprehendingly at Chris when he said something hilarious. Inevitably the girls would get mad over some typical JC behavior like his absolute unwillingness to pay for anything and then there would be screaming matches and JC would just stand there and look pained. The girls never saw that though. They just screamed and waved their arms around and then tottered off on their fuck-me heels.

Then there were the guys. They were more of them, and they were always a disaster. The girls Chris could at least understand because ok, he was as much a sucker for a nice rack as the next guy. Sometimes. But the guys JC would bring around were the worst. He would pick total losers, short pudgy guys who were always in 'development' or 'creative consulting' (read: unemployed) and who thought they were funny but really weren't. And JC just adored them. He would beam whenever he talked about them and they always cheated on him with their pool boys or junior assistants and JC ended up alone. Again.

JC was really good at being dumped but he never seemed to learn from it. Chris figured it was because JC never mourned properly. Chris prided himself on his mourning technique--Dani had refined it to a sharp, sharp point--and JC was never willing to get with the program. Chris would show up with a lot of liquor and some pot and settle in for an evening of what-ifs and woebegone reminiscing, but JC would just get drunk and smoke up and then want to order pizza or prank call Joey. And while Chris was always up for a good prank call, he also was all about the moving on. But JC never did anything more than shrug when Chris would press him and say, "It just didn't work out." And what good was that, especially when JC did nothing but dive right back in and come up with yet another loser in hand?

But whatever. That wasn't Chris's problem. His problem was that JC didn't recognize a well-laid plan.

Chris had tried everything. He'd made the small talk and done the whole stare into your eyes thing and JC had just talked back and asked him if he needed new glasses. He'd given JC a back rub and JC had sat stiffly under his hands for five minutes before saying, "Look. Whatever it is you want is fine with me. Just please stop trying to pull out my spine, ok?" He'd cornered JC in a hallway before their last show and told him he was looking really good. JC had blinked at him and said, "I thought you said pink and red stripes make me look like a demented candy cane." Stupid JC and his stupid memory.

He was starting to wonder how JC hooked up with anyone. No wonder all he could get was the bottom of the barrel. He was just fucking oblivious, or something. Chris stabbed his eggs with his fork and frowned. Just once he'd like to eat eggs that were actually hot.

"Here," Justin said, and slid him the Tabasco sauce. Chris grunted and dumped it on his eggs. Spicy was hot. Sort of.

JC was sitting at the other end of the table, pulling the crusts off his toasts and dumping cream in his coffee. "Stop that," Chris said, slapping JC's hand off his toast. He grabbed one of the six gazillion people standing around getting paid to watch them eat and told her to go get him toast with no crusts and then remembered that he was supposed to be wooing JC and not taking his food away. He grabbed JC's hand and looked at it. It looked ok. He glanced at JC's face.

JC grinned at him. He was wearing his dumb-ass golf hat (Chris actually did play golf and you couldn't pay him to wear one of those things), hair sticking out everywhere underneath it.

"Thanks," JC said, and as Chris kept watching him, his eyes crinkled up at the corners, his smile broadening like he'd heard something no one else did.

 

 

_iv. the part where you mean it_

They had another show and it went fine and afterwards he and Justin went out. Chris might have wondered what JC was doing but Justin needed cheering up. Besides, watching JC dance around on stage, grinding his hips all over the place, had made Chris feel kind of funny in a gee-my-pants-are-suddenly-too-tight way and that was a little odd. Plus Justin was way more fun to go out with anyway because he'd actually drink beer that wasn't made in small European nations where people ate French fries with mayonnaise.

But when they got back to the hotel, Justin got all sad-eyed and then decided he wanted falafel.

"Justin--" Chris said.

"What? It makes me feel better. It's comforting."

"Why can't you just drink or develop an expensive drug habit like a proper pop star?"

Justin elbowed him, already on his cellphone. "I had beer, dude."

"Whatever. Leaving," he said. Justin put his hand over the phone.

"Lonnie says it won't take more than an hour to have some made. I'll come get you when it's ready."

Chris kept on leaving.

 

JC was awake.

Or at least he was after Chris knocked on his door four times and then yelled, "JC! The bus is leaving! Hurry your ass up!"

"You could have just said you wanted to talk," JC said after he let Chris into his room. He was sitting on the bed yawning. His feet were bare. Chris wanted to touch them so he sat down and poked the covers instead. No one was under them.

"Didn't meet anyone tonight?" Justin had told him, on the way back to the hotel, that Lance and JC had gone dancing. Lance only went dancing when he wanted to get laid and what usually happened was that JC ended up bringing home one of his parade of losers and Lance got drunk and came home empty-handed. Lance dancing was never conducive to getting anyone in the mood. For anything.

JC shrugged. "You?"

"Nah," Chris said. "J's still moping about the you-know-what with you-know-who." Justin, who'd always been so happy that Britney would watch lesbian porn with him, was less happy when she'd announced that she'd been sleeping with one of her female dancers for six months and that Justin was a 'phase' that she'd 'passed through.'

"Falafel?"

Chris nodded.

JC laughed. "He couldn't just develop a drug habit like a normal person."

"That's what I told him."

"You wanna hide out here?"

Chris nodded. JC fell silent for a moment, then made the hmm'ing noise under his breath that meant he wanted to say something but thought that he might make you mad if he said it.

"What?" Chris said warily.

"You know you can't force him to feel better."

"I know," Chris said, stung. "I just want him to be happy and he, you know, isn't. And it's just -- I'm the only one that's supposed to end up bitter and alone."

"You're not---" JC said. He cleared his throat. "I'm. I'm alone."

Chris snorted. "Oh please. Like you couldn't walk outside and trip over eight billion people waiting around for you to just look at them."

"But meeting someone--you know--special..."

"You'll meet someone," Chris said automatically.

He'd told Justin the exact same thing six hundred million times in the past couple of weeks. He knew Justin would meet someone, some perfect girl with a perfect heart who'd love Justin forever and ever even if he went totally bald and gained two hundred pounds. Justin was lucky like that. Chris would be happy for Justin when it happened, if only because he was sick of falafel. But as soon as he said it he knew JC would meet someone too. He stared at his feet. JC meeting someone. It would probably be someone totally perfect and JC would be all blissful and Chris didn't feel the same kind of happy about that prospect. He mostly felt decidedly sour about it.

"You think?" JC said. His voice was a lot closer.

"You're amazing," Chris said crabbily. JC was amazing and there were a million people out there--at least--who already knew it. JC just had to meet one of them. He'd probably do it tomorrow.

"Chris."

Probably run into them while walking across a parking lot or something. And then violins would play. Or harps. Something like that. He already hated whomever it was JC was going to meet.

"Chris," JC said again, and he was very close and his mouth was parted a little and there was a sort of hugely enormous quiet pause around them and JC was really very close and that's when Chris realized he could kiss JC.

And that he wanted to kiss JC.

And that JC would let him.

 

"Wait--" JC said as Chris was leaving, but Chris pretended he couldn't hear him. The hallway was very nice, he decided. Soothing. Beige was soothing. He stared at the wall for a moment. He hadn't wanted to kiss JC. Not really. Except for the part where he had.

So the master plan needed some revisions. Because, ok, the plan wasn't about that. At all. Even if kissing JC would probably be exactly like how Chris pictured it, right down to JC looking at him, mouth parted and his eyes intense and...

Holy shit. He'd pictured it.

 

Lance heard him walking up and down the hallway fifteen minutes later.

"Chris."

"Chris."

"Chris!"

"What?"

"It's four a.m," Lance said in his best 'ha ha Chris is crazy just like the PR sheets say. Where the hell is the security guy designed to keep him quiet so I can sleep?' voice. "Do you have to walk around talking to yourself now?"

"Yes......wait. What was I saying?"

Lance sighed, leaned against his open room door. "I don't know. Something about plans. Who cares? It's four a.m. Go bug JC, will ya?"

"What does that mean?"

"What?"

"Because that sounded like it meant something. And that something had better not mean something like the something I think it means because that something isn't anything like whatever something--"

"What will it take you to shut the fuck up?"

"A thousand bucks and a good-night kiss."

"You wish," Lance said, and slammed his door shut.

 

Chris decided he was done with the plan. Oh yes, he was. Done and he was going to go out after the next show and meet someone very tall and very skinny with lots of crazy hair--no, scratch that. Short and fat with a buzz cut. No, because that was just...no. He was going to meet a supermodel who'd peel him grapes and who'd give blowjobs just because it was a Tuesday and she'd like comics and--

"Dude," Justin said, kicking his leg. "Your turn already. Quit pouting."

"Pouting? You're the one who's pouting. Who's getting their ass kicked because they can't play hockey worth a damn?"

"Whatever," Justin said. "It's only the first period. And just admit that your dumb-ass master plan didn't work already."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Chris said, and checked one of Justin's players.

"You know who you should try? Lance. I can just see him now." Justin lowered his voice. "Justin. We have a problem. Chris thinks I'm hot."

"Kicking your ass," Chris said and paused the game. He was done with the plan. He didn't remember any plan.

"You tried, dude. I mean, you listened to JC talk about *wine.* But face it. You are not the master planner. In fact, your plans suck."

"The only thing that sucks on this bus has blond hair and bad taste in hats. I was warming him up. In another couple of days he would have been so in love with me that--"

Justin kicked him--harder than usual--and Chris turned to see JC standing in the bus aisle, looking at them.

"Hey JC," Justin said brightly. "We weren't talking about you at all. We were talking about another JC."

Chris turned to glare at him. When he looked back, JC was gone.

 

JC wasn't in the bathroom, which surprised Chris as it seemed like the kind of place JC would hide out in. He'd cuffed Justin on the back of the head, taken the hockey game and threw it out the bus window, and then gone to talk to JC.

JC was sitting in the back, looking out the window.

"So," Chris said.

"Master plan, huh?"

"It wasn't--" Chris sighed and sat down next to JC. "Look, I didn't mean to--"

JC turned and looked at him, one eyebrow raised.

"Fine. It's just...you're kind of gullible, alright?" Chris said. "Sorry." He hated apologies. He was really bad at them.

"You're kind of an ass," JC said.

"Yeah, well, duh." Chris looked over at JC. JC was still looking at him. He was really close. He wasn't saying anything. Next thing you know Chris would be having another moment of insanity where he wanted to do something like lean in closer and watch JC's mouth part more. Kind of like how it was parting right now and oh fuck, he  _had_  leaned in closer.

"You --" he said.

"What?" JC said quietly and he was so close his breath feathered across Chris's mouth and it would just be a kiss and Chris had kissed  ~~hundreds~~  dozens of people and so it wasn't a big deal, really. It was just a friendly little 'hey, we're all friends here' sort of thing and he was doing it and there, he'd done it, and was totally getting up and walking away, the coolest of cool, except for the part where he hadn't moved and JC's mouth was still against his and the warm slow firm weight of his lips and the dizzyingly open glide of them was making Chris insane and it was just a kiss so it was really not a big deal.

It was just a kiss.

And Chris didn't want it to stop.

 

 

_v. a disaster waiting to happen_

Chris liked to say he'd done stupid things but the reality was that he very rarely did. He never did anything till he'd overthought it a couple of hundred times. It was a habit left over from when every choice he made had a direct impact on his family. And the truth was that even when that wasn't an issue he'd been thinking about fame--how to get it, how to keep it--and the pursuit of fame was something you had to be real careful with.

But apparently age had softened his brains. Or JC had. Chris had made out with him in the back of the bus until Justin had hollered, "What the hell are you two doing back there?" and then he'd bolted out front and pelted Justin with a lot of good old-fashioned quality time. Then he'd avoided JC for two days.

That was a lot harder than it sounded. The thing about singing with four other guys was that you spent a lot of time with them. On stage. Backstage. On buses. In limos. Standing around in hotel garages listening to Joey and Justin argue about who should get what hotel room with which view because god forbid some twelve-year-old should think that Joey and Justin would argue about things like that and never mind that JC was standing around in flip-flops even though it was cold enough for Chris to see his breath.

Then JC had refused to take Chris's socks even though Chris had pointed out that his feet didn't have any diseases. And even when Chris dragged him over behind the so-called 'unmarked' Explorer they used when they went out anywhere and pointed out that for someone who'd been willing to play tonsil hockey, JC was awfully picky about footwear, JC still wouldn't take the socks. And then maybe Chris had kissed JC again because JC was standing there all hunched and cold-looking and he didn't have the sense god gave a tree, less than that even, and when he'd said that JC had just given him this look and he was standing awfully close. And really, if he hadn't been such an ass about the socks Chris wouldn't have touched him again.

Probably.

After that it was like some sort of stupid switch had been thrown in his brain because the next thing you know he'd gone over to JC's room to borrow toothpaste--like JC was the only person in the world who'd have it, for god's sake--and ended up doing a whole bunch of unspeakably fabulous things that left him feeling a little sleepy and a lot terrified.

"We need to talk," he'd said with as much dignity as he could muster--which probably wasn't a lot, considering that he'd lost his shirt and his pants and was sitting around in his boxers and socks and that his voice was cracking like he was eleven.

JC shoved his hair out of his face and nodded. He looked great without his clothes. Chris wanted to poke his disgustingly ridged stomach. And then maybe lick it a little. He sighed.

"I don't know what your problem is," he said and then stopped because it was kind of mean and maybe JC was having some sort of JC-ish problem that would account for the making out. And Chris probably didn't want to hear the details of it because it would involve complicated things and things were already complicated enough with the lack of clothes thing going on.

"I mean, I don't know what my problem is."

"You have only one?" JC said. He was grinning a little. Chris went to tickle him--habit--and then realized he'd be touching mostly naked JC.

"I mean this is probably a bad idea," he said, and sat on his hands to make sure they wouldn't reach for things they shouldn't.

"Why?"

"Because," Chris said, getting ready to list all the reasons why, starting with the fact that he had personal knowledge of the fact that people who worked together shouldn't sleep together. JC was looking at him, biting his lower lip a little, and his eyes looked like he was braced for disaster, like he knew what Chris was going to say and was going to be sad to hear it.

It suddenly didn't seem like such a bad idea after all. Especially since his hands were already out and moving.

 

 

_vi. in the moment_

The actual sex was an accident.

Sort of.

Chris had decided to treat the whole JC thing as some sort of....something. A temporary condition like shingles, except with orgasms instead of painful skin blisters. He figured JC was lonely or something; touring made it impossible to really do much of anything even sort of normal, which probably explained why he seemed like a good idea to JC.

That explanation didn't really work for him though. Or it did, as long as Chris didn't think about it too much. Sure, he and JC had always gotten along pretty well. JC was smart and dedicated and funny--sometimes--and underneath his surface mannerisms of pauses and slow gestures he was as wound up as Chris was, always needing to do something, always writing or talking about producing or thinking about the next song, the next album, the next tour. Those were things Chris could--and did--understand and respect. So it wasn't that he hadn't liked JC before, or hadn't noticed that he was easy on the eyes--he wasn't blind, after all. It was just that everything he felt now seemed so...ready, or something. Like it had been there all along, and he'd just never let himself see it.

So he wasn't thinking about it and everything was fine.

And then they went to St. Louis.

They played strip go-fish in St. Louis. Chris was a little skeptical at first--JC had knocked on his door, asked if he was busy, and then declared he wanted to play go fish--but then, when JC had asked for fours and Chris had replied, "Nope, not a one," JC had taken his shirt off.

Chris was a lot more interested in the game after that.

"I'm gonna beat the pants off you," he said a few minutes later, leering in JC's direction. It wasn't a very good leer though. He'd gotten distracted, looking at the little knot of skin at the edge of JC's pants. And it wasn't even like he hadn't ever noticed that JC actually had visible muscles in that little bend of skin beside the jut of his hipbone. He had. It was just that now he could touch that skin, really touch it. And he really really wanted to.

"That's pretty much the general idea," JC said. "You have any twos?"

And eventually they both ended up sitting around naked which was absolutely acceptable and then they both ended up lying around naked, which was even better. The hotel beds were a little mushy, the kind that sank in the middle, and JC was arching up towards him and one of Chris's hands was curled over JC's hip, thumb stroking over the little hollow he'd wanted to touch so badly, when he realized exactly what he wanted and exactly how much he wanted it.

He'd wanted a hundred million things in his life, really, from clothes that weren't from stores housed in smelly church basements when he was a kid to a motorcycle with enough horsepower to raise the dead when he turned twenty-nine. He was good at wanting things; was used to the sticky way need could infect him, slide right inside and become all he could think about. So it wasn't a surprise to look down at JC and think, "I wanna be inside him," and it wasn't a surprise that he wanted it so much because he'd had always been good at wanting intensely, almost desperately, as well. The real shock was JC looking back at him, answering intensity in his gaze.

 

It was only when he was lined up behind JC, listening to him moan nice encouraging sounds, that Chris really realized what he was doing.

He had his hands on JC's ass. He was going to--

He was going to freak JC's ass.

He wanted to freak JC's ass. Very badly. Jesus.

Chris had always used wanting to keep him going, to push him forward. Desire was motivation, the most powerful kind. But this--thing--with JC--there wasn't a purpose to it. It was just want, just need, and the strength of it was like a blow.

He should have ruined things. Chris was very good at that, finding that horrid bump that could nose things out of joint, words that would sting and slice and at that moment the riot inside him was searching for an outlet. He had a hundred perfect cutting things to say but when JC shifted, turning towards him, Chris couldn't do anything but touch him. JC knew him, inside and out, and anything he would have said would have shone for the total lie it was. All he wanted was to touch JC.

And so he did.

 

"Chris, "JC said later, his voice hot and thick, and Chris stared up at him, dazed. His legs were spread. JC was doing stuff to him. Toe-curling stuff. Now he wanted JC to freak his ass and JC was certainly going to and instead of getting up and running away to have a proper breakdown he was lying there spreading his legs, hips pulsing up, waiting. He was in over his head.

He started to say that but then JC shifted a little. He wasn't smiling and his eyes were intense. Chris knew his gaze, recognized it from moments when JC had argued for things he'd wanted, chances he'd been eager to take. And now that gaze was on him.

"I want you," JC said, and Chris never ever went for that lame-ass girly romance novel stuff, where words supposedly made people as hot as good old-fashioned fingering did. But the muscles in JC's shoulders were flexing, trembling, and he could see them. JC was shaking, not from effort, but from holding himself still. He wanted to move forward. He wants me, Chris thought, and felt sunlight bloom inside him.

 

In the end, it was sex and so it wasn't perfect. He had to whack the tube of lube against the nightstand to get it ungunked and his hands were sweating and JC's were cold and their legs tangled together and it hurt, even with all the lube and the wanting. But there was a moment, JC poised over him, eyes fluttering and his mouth smiling as he said, "You should only do that again if you want me to come right away," where everything around them receded a bit and for the first time in his life, Chris didn't think about what was next, what would come after. Instead he just felt, and JC was right there with him.

 

He watched Sports Center afterwards. JC dozed. He slept like he always had, his face relaxed, his features soft-looking. When they were first starting out, Chris could never really look at JC when he was sleeping. He spent a lot of time drawing mustaches on him, amusing everyone and touching JC's face without ever touching it at all.

He reached out and ran his fingers over the line of JC's jaw. JC didn't move and his breathing stayed even and slow.

Chris looked back at the tv. There was big news about bowling. He watched, curling his hands in on themselves.

 

 

_vii. the rules_

Chris had two rules.

1\. Don't do anything stupid.  
2\. See rule number one.

He was pretty good at following them for the most part, but the one big exception area started with an r and ended with ship, which is usually what Chris wished he was on by the time things inevitably blew up in his face. He just wasn't cut out for the long-term romantic stuff. He'd never had a chance to try, really, when he was younger and then there was Florida, with the working to be famous thing and the occasional sleeping with guys and hoping Lou didn't find out thing. And then there was Germany, where he would have slept with plenty of people except for the little problem of their schedule, which was packed so full that he barely had time to jerk off, much less go out and do the 'hi, god you're hot, wanna have sex?' thing that only ever worked for him about 80% of the time anyway. Ok, 45% of the time.

And then there was Dani.

He broke the rules for her. She was too pretty and too smart and too much like someone who never would have looked at him before he was a guy in a video but there she was, pretending to be his girlfriend and smiling at him like she meant it. He'd got her number, hoping, and called her. Then he went to her house and made her breakfast. He could make a mean omelet. She'd sat and watched him -- her pretty face and pretty hair and pretty smile almost too much for him to look at -- and told him that she was really glad he called. He could tell she meant it and knew it was a gift, someone like her liking him and later, loving him.

The only thing was that he'd never really trusted it, never really trusted her, and she'd known it. It had hurt her that he was always waiting for the other shoe to drop and when it did, knowing he was right wasn't much comfort.

And now there was JC. They'd moved into this weird sort of limbo thing where they did all the things they had before-- they hung out, bitched about rehearsals and discussed what the group should do next. They rode on the bus together and Chris played video games with Justin and JC read books and scribbled out song lyrics. They did PR stuff and took pictures and did charity events. Totally normal, except that sex usually punctuated the hanging out, there was making out on the bus when Justin was asleep, and sometimes, during bullshit interviews or yet another photoshoot where they had to look goofy *and* hot (at the same time, no less, which wasn't easy), he and JC would share a look. A 'later' sort of look.

And the 'later' always happened and it was always good and it wasn't like he didn't already know everything about JC, but this--whatever it was-- flavored it all differently.

For instance, he knew JC was flexible. He was the fuck who insisted they continue to do moves during the tour that made Chris's knees seize up. It was different, though, when he was on his knees and JC's legs were wrapped around him and JC was breathless, squirming, hands clenching his skin.

He used to make fun of JC for his slavish devotion to torture devices that were labeled exercise equipment. But that was before he had JC hovering up over him, balancing easily with his face flushed and intent, smiling when Chris said, 'slower. No, slower. Slow-- _oh_."

They got a week off mid-tour and Chris went home and stayed there. And as he was sitting around eating Chinese food naked one afternoon, watching JC get up and pad off to write something down, automatically lifting his feet up over the sticky spot on the carpet Chris never had gotten around to getting cleaned (hair gel, from one of Justin's attempts to fix his hair during the tower of curls period) he knew he'd broken the rules again.

He watched JC head towards the kitchen and knew he was heading there because there was a pen by the phone. And that was familiar; the way they knew each other like that, where they kept their pens, the layout and quirks off all their homes. But there were new things; things like the cracking sounds of Chris's knees as he followed JC and sank to the floor in front of him. Things like JC's hands threading through his hair and the small choked sounds of his breathing. Things like JC's smile afterwards, the feel of his arms as he pulled Chris up and towards him. The fact that he stayed with Chris, in his house, for the whole week, and that Chris wanted him to.

Chris had rules.

But he knew they wouldn't do much good if you didn't obey them.

 

 

_viii. know thyself_

"So what is this we're doing?" He asked at the last possible moment, the morning JC was scheduled to fly to LA for some producing gig before the tour started up again. He hoped JC knew how much it cost him to ask that question and then quickly decided he hoped JC didn't.

JC, who was putting on his pants, stopped and looked at him. "I don't know," he said and he was telling the truth because JC blinked when he lied and he wasn't doing anything but looking directly at Chris now.

"Do you want to stop?"

"No," JC replied and the gladness Chris felt told him that not only was he in over his head, he was whatever sort of thing one could say to imply total and utter looming disaster that would probably result in lawsuits or bad photos of him surfacing in the Enquirer and--

"Do you want to stop?"

And there it was. His out, and if he could be classy and sensitive about the whole thing, everything might not be totally fucked up. He'd probably absorbed something from just being around pre-teen girls that made him nurturing or something and so chances were that --

"No." He hadn't meant to say it, but as soon as he did, he knew it was true. He didn't want to stop.

That's when he really started to worry.

 

 

_ix. samson meets his match_

JC went to LA. He called every day and it didn't annoy Chris at all, and so he went and got a haircut. It was always the first thing he did when he felt stressed. When they were getting ready to go back to America, returning from being stars in Germany to face starting over from the nobody point again, he'd gone and gotten dreads put in. During the lawsuit he'd gone and gotten his hair loped off. He'd dyed his hair green the week Dani told him she'd gotten a marriage proposal and was seriously thinking about it and had to wear a hat during promo appearances for the Atlantis concert. This time he shaved his head and had what was left shaped into a fairly passable mohawk.

He refused to pick JC up at the airport and instead waited till everyone was together at Johnny's for a meeting before he let himself see him.

Justin laughed when Chris walked in and kept laughing until Chris threatened to beat him. Lance rolled his eyes and said, "You know the 80s ended a long time ago, right?" Joey said, "You have kind of an odd shaped head, dude. How did you get this dent here?" and poked at Chris's skull with two fingers.

"It's... uh," JC said. He scratched his ankle and then his nose, turned back to the plate of runny cheese and crackers he was eating.

Chris waited for a moment.

"It's what?" he said, more sharply than he intended.

"mmmargugh," JC said around a mouthful of cheese.

 

He tasted like cheese later. Cheese and Dr. Pepper.

JC liked to talk big about wine, but mostly what he did was buy it, put the boxes in his basement, and forward the bills to his accountant for tax purposes. Chris liked that he'd learned that.

"Your hair," JC said, pulling back and sliding his fingers over the shaved sides of Chris's skull.

"You hate it?" Chris said hopefully.

He obviously couldn't be trusted to do the smart thing about JC. And if there was one thing he knew, it was that JC was very particular about shit like hair. He spent an hour fixing his own every morning (hogging up valuable time Chris would rather use having sex). He figured sooner or later JC would wake up and see who he was fucking. He hoped this would force the issue. He was really glad he'd shaved his head.

"It's kind of hot."

"Kind of hot?" Chris had made his peace with his squeaky girl voice--after all, it'd made him a fuckload of money--but still. Just once he'd like to be able to sound--well, like someone who had a rockin' punk hairdo.

"mmmmm," JC said, and stepped closer, tilting his mouth down towards Chris's.

"I missed you," he said and he was smiling, eyes crinkling up at the corners like he knew something Chris didn't.

 

 

_x. the obligatory painting scene_

Chris knew that JC painted. He'd been there when JC told them he was. He'd come to an interview with a paintbrush tucked behind one ear and flushed a little when everyone asked him about it, said, "Ok, yes, I've been painting. What? It relaxes me." Joey and Justin had walked around using atrocious fake French accents for a couple of days after that, talking about light and flow and pretending to have artistic temperaments (Justin was really good at that) till Chris noticed that JC's smile was looking a little droopy and told them that Lance had bought matching sweaters for himself and his ferret, which wasn't really true at all but was a pretty Lance thing to do and had given Joey and Justin something new to work with.

So he knew JC painted and hadn't thought much of it until the tour ended and whole sleeping together thing continued and he was in JC's house and JC would say things like "I'm going to paint today." And that made things like picturing JC painting naked seem perfectly natural and not at all like the kind of perverted thoughts one should allow oneself only when one was very drunk. Not that Chris had ever indulged in thoughts like that before, except for that one time. And that one other time. And maybe that one other time but that didn't really count because he'd been drinking Mad Dog and clearly that stuff messed with one's thought processes. So it was totally ok to picture himself watching naked painting JC. Crazy naked painting JC, even, all swept away by art and maybe using his fingers to smear paint around to get a picture perfect or whatever. That really was a fairly hot idea, especially when Chris added in himself and had the two of them rolling around on the floor, JC's fingers leaving multi-colored streaks on his skin.

He should have known better. JC was the one who actually went around and tried to straighten up their dressing rooms, after all.

In actuality, Chris learned, JC painted using some big-ass thing he called a palette in one hand, a brush in the other, and wiped his hands fairly compulsively on a rag. Instead of a huge canvas haphazardly set (and ready to be knocked to the ground so two people could roll about on it), he painted on a perfectly arranged tiny square, pinned in place with shiny metal pins that looked very sharp. And there wasn't a riot of color. Instead there was a flesh-tone blob with darker flesh-tone squiggles crossing it.

And he wore a smock.

"What the hell is that?" Chris asked when he first saw JC wearing it.

"A smock."

"That sounds about right." It was like a shirt only much bigger, and mostly resembled an overgrown pillowcase with a hole cut in it for JC's strange, strange head.

"Do you have clothes on under it?" he asked hopefully.

JC glanced at him. He was wearing his glasses and holding a paintbrush. He had a pencil tucked behind each ear. "Of course I have clothes on. Why else would I be wearing the smock?"

Chris sighed. JC hummed under his breath and turned back to his painting. He was about as hot as--as something not very hot, Chris decided. With his big pillowcase smock and his tiny boring colored canvas and careful lip-biting concentration, eyes narrowed on the little squiggles he was coloring in, hands moving carefully, fingers slowly tracing the paintbrush back and forth, focused attention on what was in front of him, and the look on his face like the one that he got when he was doing something he really wanted to and suddenly all the blood in Chris's body was rushing southward very quickly.

JC did complain when Chris tackled him and the palate fell on the floor. But when Chris said, "It's just hot, all that concentration," worming his hands under JC's smock, JC quieted and turned all his attention towards him.

And that was really hot.

 

 

_xi. the best relationship you never had_

JC was the best boyfriend Chris had ever had. Except that Chris didn't do the r-ship word and even if he did, he would never say boyfriend. Boyfriend sounded like something JC would say. It was, in fact, something JC had said countless times before. For Peter and Carlos and Greg and Fernando and Robert. My boyfriend, JC would say as he introduced them and they weren't around anymore, were they?

So JC wasn't his boyfriend.

JC was just around instead, and Chris liked that just fine. He went shopping with JC and learned that JC wasn't cheap at all. He liked clothing with price tags that made Chris blanch and he bought special paintbrushes and special hair care products and special food (organic, free-range, you name it--if it came in a cool package and was wildly overpriced, JC was a sucker for it).

"No wonder you're always bitching about how much studio time costs," Chris said. "Maybe if you didn't buy paint brushes made of...sable hair...ok, you know what -- you are just a freak and a half because sable hair? What the hell is a sable?"

JC smiled at him and ran one of the brushes down Chris's neck, smiling more when Chris shivered.

 

They watched tv and went to the movies (of course Chris had to pay) and JC grouted Chris's shower (poorly) and Chris changed the oil in JC's car (which then needed a trip to the mechanic). And then, one night when Chris was cooking dinner, JC smiled at him and said, "We could go somewhere, maybe. Like a vacation. We have time now and..."

"Maybe," Chris had said, already in love with the idea, JC on a beach with the sun in his hair. His skin would turn a soft bronze and the tang of salt and the crisp scent of sunscreen would hover in the air and they'd be on some island off the coast of somewhere where the pace of life was quiet and slow and they'd sleep curled up in a bed listening to the ocean roar. They'd go out to dinner and Chris would be able to touch JC's hand across the table instead of under it and JC would smile and take a sip of some stupid drink with an umbrella in it and later he'd let Chris take him down to the beach and--

They ended up doing it on the floor in the kitchen, Chris gasping out JC's name so he wouldn't say anything else. Like 'let's go now.' Or 'promise me things won't ever change.'

 

After that he practiced saying things in the bathroom mirror every morning. He'd pile on the shaving cream and practice saying things he could say when JC brought around someone new. Because JC always brought around someone new and he didn't want to forget it.

"Nice to meet you," he said, and his reflection scowled at him. Ok, that needed work.

"So, you and JC --," and no, that was even worse. He looked like a serial killer.

"This thing we have -- it isn't going to last," he said and the look in his eyes clearly showed that he hoped it would.

He shaved in the shower. He was getting to be pretty good at it.

 

JC said he was going back to LA for a while. Some producing stuff he had to do, a couple of meetings he needed to go to, something about something to do with some songs he'd written. Chris pretended to listen and concentrated on looking relaxed. It wasn't like he hadn't been practicing for this. Temporary thing, he told himself. Remember?

JC must have finished talking because not only had it gotten very quiet, he was looking at Chris strangely, his face all wrinkled up with worry.

"Well, ok, I guess I'll see you--" Chris said too loudly and too fake cheerfully at the same time JC said,

"So will you come with me?"

 

"What?"  
"What?"

 

"You want me to--?"   
"You don't want to---?"

 

"I'll come to LA with you," Chris said quickly, before JC could take it back.

"Chris," JC said. "You do know I--"

Chris kissed him.

JC wasn't his boyfriend.

But Chris didn't want him to be anyone else's.

 

LA was just like it always was. The whole town made Chris itchy, the way everyone was so cool with you being famous and yet watched you like a hawk every second waiting for something juicy to happen.

"And also," he told JC one night when they were on their way to some dumb-ass reception for some fifth-rate magazine, "All those bleached teeth. Everywhere, man! It's creepy. Like a nightmare but with more cellphones."

"That doesn't even make sense," JC said, but he leaned his head against Chris's shoulder and sighed.

"I wish we were home," he said and Chris concentrated on looking out the tinted limo window so he wouldn't focus on the hitching sensation that had rolled over in his chest when JC had said those words.

 

The party was ok. He ran into Gwen Stefani who smiled and hugged him and said she liked his t-shirt. She was tiny and gorgeous and he would have licked her feet if she asked. She didn't.

He fucked JC in a catering closet, desperate to touch him, the two of them braced up against tall silver trays set with prawns lined up on some sort of disgusting looking wheat cracker. JC was prettier than Gwen, maybe. It didn't matter, really, because he was all Chris could see. JC kissed the skin below Chris's right ear when they were done. He was humming a little, soft satisfied sounds.

"You're the best," he said and smiled and Chris's stomach clenched for a moment but no, it was JC and JC said anyone who put extra ice in his drinks was the best. JC liked really cold drinks. Chris thought that was weird, but then he thought eating big giant shrimp on cardboard looking crackers was weird and he was the only person in the world who seemed to hold that opinion.

JC was glowing for the rest of the party. Chris felt tired and his back hurt and he mostly forgot about it when JC smiled at him. JC smiled a lot, so it didn't mean anything. JC smiled at everybody.

 

They went back to Florida. They had sex in Chris's house and JC's house and read the Sunday newspaper together. They did it in Justin's house, furtively, while everyone else was outside eating pizza. They did it in JC's car, in Chris's backyard. Chris went to buy a stereo and JC went with him, and Chris found himself checking to make sure he got something with speakers that could pick up the nuances of all the quiet jazz cds JC owned. They did it at Johnny's compound, in a back hallway during a planning meeting about the next tour, Chris's hand over JC's mouth to keep him quiet making him so turned on he ended up having to bite down on JC's shoulder when he came.

"JC should have a say in this," Johnny said later. They were talking about the rider. Chris shifted in his seat and hoped he'd remembered to zip up his pants. He'd come back first, pausing outside the room where Johnny and Lance and Justin and Joey were sitting, wishing he could turn right back around and go find JC again.

"He likes soy cheese," Chris said. "And raisins. And we should add those juice things we got for free at that show in Houston. Justin, you remember what they were called? He likes those."

"Something sensations, " Justin said. "And dude, zip your pants up, will ya?"

 

 

_xii. a little nudity never hurt anything._

Chris's mother went on vacation. Chris was very happy for her. His mother deserved nice vacations. The only problem was that she went with JC's mom.

"You're what?" Chris said when she told him.

"We're leaving in two weeks," his mother told him. "I'll send you a postcard."

"Your mother is going on vacation with my mother," he told JC when he got off the phone. JC was lying on the sofa eating ice cream and wearing a pair of shorts that looked like they'd seen better days, faded and baggy and threadbare. Chris wanted to rip them off with his teeth. He glared at JC.

"So?" JC said, and licked the spoon he was holding. "They went on that cruise last year, remember?"

They had. Chris had gotten a postcard signed by both of them. He and JC had gone to pick them up at the airport. JC had listened to him bitch about working with Dani and her new boyfriend who had perfect teeth the whole way there and had told him not to worry, that one day the right person would come along. Then he'd made Chris pay for parking. And parking at the airport cost a lot of money.

"You're paying for another pint of rocky road," he said. JC nodded absently and scratched his stomach. Chris went over to help him get more comfortable. A little nudity never hurt anything.

 

His mother did send a postcard. She said she was having a great time. 'Say hi to JC' was there too. Chris flipped it back and forth through his hands and debated calling to find out exactly what his mother meant by that. Then he put the postcard up on the refrigerator. He had a couple of others up there. The one JC sent from the World's Largest Ball of Twine. One Justin had sent him from Hawaii when he was still with Britney, the back of it all filled up with mushy sentiments about how great love was (when Justin was totally over her, Chris fully intended to torture him about that) and one from Joey and Lance in Toronto, with a Joey drawing of Lance the Movie Star.

JC didn't put his postcard up. Chris checked his refrigerator carefully, but it wasn't there. He flicked one of the menus JC had up instead. Like JC even called and ordered food if someone wasn't around to pay.

"What are you doing?"

Chris jumped and then turned it into a grab, looping his arms around JC's middle. "Nothin'."

JC made a hmmm'ing noise. "You hungry?"

"I don't have any money."

"It's not like you pay for everything, Chris."

"Right. How could I forget that pizza you bought in 1998?"

"That's not true," JC said. "I paid for--that thing. In that place. You know what I'm talking about." He turned in Chris's arms, grinning down at him.

Chris grunted, still looking at the refrigerator. Hadn't JC put up postcards before? He couldn't remember. Maybe he hadn't gotten one. But no, he remembered JC talking to him about postcards the last time their mothers had gone away. Oh god. He was dating someone whose mother his mother went on vacation with. No, not dating. Sleeping with. Having wild sex with. Maybe JC was trying to tell him something by not putting his postcard up. He was going to have to take his stuff home and there wouldn't be anymore waking up in the morning to see JC sprawled out over the bed, one arm thrown over his head and his other arm reaching towards Chris--

"Chris." JC's breath was warm and soft against his ear.

"What?" Chris said, and took a step back. He was not a hugging while being dumped kind of guy.

"You're worried about something."

"What?"

"You're talking to yourself."

"I am not ta--what did I say?"

"Something about postcards. Did you get one from your mom yet? I put mine up by the phone."

By the phone. Of course. Chris had spent ten minutes trying not to knock all of JC's postcards down the other day when JC had decided he wanted to do it on his desk. He was lucky Chris was such a giving person, the kind of person who was willing to sacrifice his back for a good cause.

"Come 'ere," Chris said and JC grinned at him, sliding into the circle of his arms.

 

 

_xiii. your problem is you_

All this sex and togetherness couldn't be healthy Chris decided one morning as he watched JC get up and head to the shower, tossing a quick sideways grin back at Chris as he did. There had to be some sort of side effect. Brain tumors, maybe. Or a big fucking mess when things went bad just like when he'd stopped sleeping with Dani, the way she'd sit down next to him just like she always had and he'd tug at her hair just like he always did and they'd both smile so carefully at each other, so quick to prove that everything was fine, that the silences between them didn't hold anything like regret or anger.

He could hear JC singing in the shower. He thought about going and getting another haircut. He got up and went to work on JC's car instead.

 

"You don't need to do that," JC said when he found him. Chris lifted his head up from the inside of JC's car and looked at him. JC's hair was wet and his feet were bare.

"I don't mind."

"No," JC said. "I mean you don't need to do that."

"So you mean you want me to stop."

JC sighed. "Yes."

"Why?"

"Because."

"That's a pretty shitty reason."

"How about this then?" JC said. "I like my car."

"You like your car."

"Yes. I like my car the way it is. Running. That's why I want you to stop working on it."

"This is about sex, right?"

"I'm pretty sure it's about my car."

"I--" Chris said, and fiddled with the wrench he was holding. "It's just you--this--. Stuff. You think sex could fuck everything up."

"I don't see what this has to do with my car. Also, we've already had sex."

"That's --"

"You know what your problem is?" JC continued, his words tumbling out in a rush. "You won't let yourself--"

"When we stop," Chris said and hated JC in that second, for making him spell everything out. "Then what happens? Because I've done that and let me tell you, not good. In fact, it's so far beyond not good that--"

"Ok, let me get this straight," JC said, and poked Chris in the chest with one finger. "Sex is going to fuck everything up?"

'Not having sex."

"Not having sex, fine," JC said and there was a slight smile on his face. "You think that's going to fuck stuff up? You called me Spazzez for six months when we first met. You once woke me up by putting a snake in my bed. Just last week you told Justin that if I insisted on wearing my--and I'm quoting here--"dumbass golf hat" in public I should wear a sign around my neck that said 'no, really, I swear I don't have brain damage.' So you know what? I really don't think sex is going to make or break anything at this point."

"Huh," Chris said. "Never thought of it that way."

"That sounds about right," JC said, and took the wrench out of Chris's hand.

 

JC wore his golf hat to Joey's house later. They drank beer and watched Brianna eat her birthday cake by mashing her hands into it, Lance taking pictures and Justin restraining himself from opening all the presents. Chris chased JC around the pool later, trying to snatch his hat off his head, and stopped him in the shadows, the sun spotting through leaves over their heads and catching the smile in JC's eyes.

"You know before," Chris said. "Stuff I did and everything. I didn't mean--that is, I did, but not like--. I just. You know."

"I know," JC said, and kissed him.

 

 

_xiv. don't ever let me go_

They went on vacation. Or rather they decided to go on vacation and Chris worried that he wasn't worried about going and wondered what he'd done to make himself into the kind of guy who could spend hours worrying that he wasn't worried enough.

JC, however, seemed to worry plenty. He worried about where they would go until they settled on an island in the Pacific that had a long lyrical unpronounceable name and promised privacy. Then he worried about the plane tickets, which Chris was unable to worry about because he had the whole 'I hate planes. And flying.' thing to worry about. Then, a week before they left, JC sunk into some JC-ish state where he withdrew and communicated in huge vacant smiles and nods of assurance that weren't very reassuring at all and only then was Chris truly able to worry.

"Look," Chris finally told him the day before they left, his stomach squeezed into a small knot by his throat, "if you don't want to go, it's fine." The problem with worrying about worrying was that no matter how many times he told himself he was ready for it, the reality was that freaked out JC freaked him out badly. He wanted to fix things and didn't know how and he wanted things to be ok and was terrified they wouldn't be and the whole thing left him decidedly miserable.

"I want to go," JC spat at him, and ran his hands through his hair. "I just can't deal with your---whatever-- right now, ok?"

"I'm not the one packing eight hundred long-sleeved shirts to wear on a tropical island, JC. I'm just saying, stuff like that could mean--"

"Motherfucker!" JC said, and slammed his hand down on the suitcase. "You and your fucking paranoia. Did it ever fucking occur to you that--" He clamped his lips together.

"What?"

"I've never gone on vacation with someone before, ok? Jesus," JC said and went back to rolling up his t-shirts. Chris stared at him, his heart somewhere around his knees and his mind screaming 'you moron, run away! Get a haircut! Go home and smoke a lot of pot and save yourself!'

"You never--" he said instead, and his voice sounded faint. Thinking back, he couldn't actually remember a trip JC had taken that didn't involve the group or work or his family.

"You're nervous," he breathed.

JC glared at him. "I'm not. I mean. I just--shit." He sat down on the bed. "I don't want anything to go wrong," he said.

Chris had occasionally had fond feelings towards someone before, a rush of sort of warm fuzziness over someone worrying over him or even just knowing that someone was in his life. But seeing that JC--who never worried about anything, really, just sort of squared his shoulders and ran with whatever life threw at him--was worried about this--the way he felt then was sort of overwhelming. It was like he actually wanted to hug the world. Like, really hug it and maybe sing it a goofy-ass happy song and then sweep JC into his arms and make some sort of big romantic declaration. It was actually kind of scary.

"Nothing's going to go wrong," he said, and folded his hands together so they wouldn't reach for JC. He wasn't sure he'd ever let him go if he touched him.

"It's just-- I thought relaxing was supposed to be more relaxing than this."

"You've got a lot to learn about vacations," Chris said.

 

The island was very nice. It was warm and sunny and scenic and best of all no one there gave a rat's ass who they were and their cellphones didn't even work so it was just them. And after a few hours there JC mellowed out and turned into this blazing-eyed many-armed creature who just wanted to get Chris into bed and really, that was fun *and* an enormous ego boost.

They both tried to read books, Chris squinting at some self-help book he'd let Justin buy him so he wouldn't have to hear anymore talk about Britney and lesbian porn. ("She'd make me pause it, man! I thought that was so cool! Do you think her always telling me that she'd totally do chicks I thought were hot was a sign or something?") JC was thumbing through some thick serious book that Chris suspected JC was reading because he liked the idea of reading it. Just to check, though, he switched his glasses with JC's that night, sliding his own into the case that (of course) JC kept his in. The next morning he watched JC thumb contently through pages for an hour before he said, "You know, you're wearing my glasses."

"I was totally on to you." JC said. "I was just--oh, to hell with this. You wanna go fuck?"

Chris tossed his book out into the ocean and opened his arms.

 

JC bought a scarf when they went out later, a sheer and bright length of silk that shone even among the hues of everything in the market they walked through. He argued over the price with the woman selling them for so long that Chris ended up yanking it out of his hands and buying it for him. He'd made fun of JC on the way back to the hotel, asked if he was planning to wear the scarf as a turban, miming ridicule with his hands. JC grinned at him, teeth flashing even in the bright sunshine of the cab, and pushed him down on the bed when they got back to the room, looping Chris's arms up over his head, tying the fabric into an exaggerated bow.

"You freak," Chris said, and arched up into JC's hands.

"That's why you like me," JC said, and licked his shoulder.

 

This is too easy, Chris thought, waking up in the morning and watching JC sleep, the softened lines of his face. Even when he was sleeping JC raced for all the things he wanted, arms and legs moving restlessly, reaching out, but he always woke up smiling and there were never any shadows in his eyes.

Chris wanted to worry but there was nothing to worry about. He was happy, content in a way he'd never been before. JC knew him inside and out, and all the things that Chris thought should drive him crazy didn't.

 

Eventually they had to go home. The night before they left they went to dinner and Chris thought he wanted to memorize everything. The salt scent of the air, JC's tan face, the way his hair gleamed bright radiating out from the top of his head, kissed by the sun. The way he rubbed his feet against Chris's legs before he fell asleep, the sound of his voice breathing out Chris's name.

In the morning it already seemed like a dream. Chris sat quietly on the plane, breathing in cold recycled air, JC asleep next to him. When they started to descend, LA waiting for them and past that, Orlando and the everyday fabric of their lives, he took a deep breath. Flying was fine except for the taking off and the touching down and the whole trapped in a box hovering at 40,000 feet thing.

JC shifted, blinking slowly, and suddenly his hand was warm against Chris's, their fingers loosely entwined.

He doesn't know what he's doing, Chris thought. It's just a gut reaction. JC had held his hand before even, back when they were just JC and Chris and not whatever they were now. There was nothing to worry about there.

Nothing other than that he didn't want JC to let go.

 

 

_xv. if that's what you want_

So what ruined everything?

Well, he did, of course. But also air conditioning, which Chris had always considered pretty useful before but that just went to show how much he knew.

Anyway. The end. He was hot, he was crabby, and he found JC fiddling with the thermostat one afternoon, biting his lip in the manner that meant he wanted to save Chris money and wasn't he being helpful? For some reason it enraged him, that JC--something. Knew his house so well. Knew him so well. He kept thinking of JC on a plane half-asleep beside him, holding his hand with no thought at all. He kept thinking about how badly he wanted those fingers entwined with his.

"It's too hot for this shit," he said, and JC frowned at him, forehead wrinkling into confused lines.

"What?"

"Just because you're so cheap you're willing to sit around sweating out the better part of your life --" Chris started and then he was off and running. He knew JC, knew what would make him laugh. Knew what would make him frown, what would make his mouth pinch at the corners and his eyes go miserable and farther away, turning impossible to read and he kept talking, saying stupid things, hurtful things, and JC's face grew tighter and tighter, everything expressive in his face closing down.

"And that's why this--whatever--is just a fucking mistake," Chris said, shouting the way he did when he was wound up and stupid and jesus, what was he saying? It was like a rancid slide of words was pouring out of him, words he couldn't even hear but was able to shape, to say. He kept seeing JC holding his hand and feeling his own desperate desire to cling. JC's eyes were glazed, far away like he was already gone.

JC was sad and Chris was making him so. He felt his mouth dry up, words slamming to a halt.

"I don't mean," he said. "I didn't--" and he didn't mean what he'd said but if he didn't why had he said it? And why was it so easy to say? His heart was beating hard and fast in his chest, anxious. He might fuck everything up, if he wasn't careful, and he didn't want to. Being with JC was amazing, simple in the best, most joyful way. He'd never known anything like it. Love shouldn't be like this, he thought angrily. It shouldn't be so easy -- it seemed like a lie, after everything he'd know about it before, how it pulled at you, stretched you out. Then he realized what he was thinking and his voice seized up again. Apparently he was still talking.

I'm in love with JC, he thought and it was the worst and best thing that had ever happened to him.

"I can't do this anymore," he said and he couldn't, not like this. There was a pit inside him, soul-deep and endless, and he'd pulled everything that had made him who he was out of it and JC, quietly, had taken him back to the yawning mouth of that pit, shown him that it could be turned so it would all focus on one person, that he could love endlessly, if he wanted to. It was too much, to feel that.

So he went for the easy way out. And for him the easy way was to push and shove and create space around himself with words, to lay careful barbed areas where no one would want to tread. JC stood watching him, his eyes flat and blank.

"If that's what you want," he finally said when Chris had run out of words and silence was hanging between them. And more silence fell after that and Chris realized that he was waiting for JC to rail at him, to implore him, to tell him to wake up, snap out of it, that guess what, stupidity doesn't let you escape love.

But instead JC just watched him and his eyes were still blank, blinking slowly and he didn't say a word. Chris pushed past him, blindly, went outside and stood there, shaking until he realized he was waiting for JC to come get him. Then he went and got on his bike and roared around the streets, endless loops through quiet subdivisions where no one was ever home but the lawns were always perfectly mowed. Eventually he realized he'd left his own house, run out like the waffling heroine in some horrid-ass chick flick and shame burned in his chest. That was the part of love he recognized.

He drove home not knowing what he wanted to find when he got there but in the end it didn't matter because when he arrived JC was already gone.

 

 

_xvi. happy now?_

So things were over. Fine. Chris could deal with that. He got drunk a couple of times and bought some truly excellent pot and smoked it and ate a lot of horrible Chinese food and spent a lot of time watching tv at Justin's house, Adam Sandler movies with the sound turned off and the Spanish subtitles turned on. Everything was funnier in Spanish, and Chris liked the liquid slide of syllables he could mostly understand, the glide of words he could almost place. JC had fucked him up pretty good, he thought sourly, when all he could do was sit around and think about Spanish. He wished he had more pot.

JC was, predictably, fine. Every time Chris asked Justin would say, "JC? He's cool. I talked to him today (yesterday, last week). He's, you know, doing his thing (writing, in the studio, out in LA)." Chris didn't want to know if he was seeing anybody which meant that he called Joey and asked him after a couple of weeks had passed, rocking back and forth on his heels and chewing furiously on his fingernails.

"Dating?" Joey said. "You mean fucking?"

"Yeah, whatever," Chris said (hopefully casually) and bit down hard on his thumbnail.

"I don't know man," Joey told him. "I haven't seen him with anyone. Are you doing anything later?"

"Why?" Chris asked, and told himself he wasn't relieved. Because he didn't care. Except for the part where he was imagining JC's imaginary new boyfriend cheating on JC and JC coming over to his house all sad-eyed and in the mood for sex. He sighed.

"Well, see, Kelly and me, we thought tonight we might--"

"Only if you pay me this time, you fuck. Bri is cute and all, but dude, I don't do poopy diapers for free."

"Like you have anything better to do," Joey said good-naturedly, and that was the truth, as sucky as it was. So Chris babysat and Brianna mashed peas into her hair and grinned at him and it was adorable and Chris wished things like that could make him happy because honestly, he was pretty damn miserable.

 

They all went to some awards show, Teen something or Viewer whatever, which basically meant a trip to LA and the five of them sitting in a limo on their way to yet another auditorium or arena made over with a taped down roll of cheap red carpet and a parade of mostly b-list celebs shoved into outfits designed to make the pages of People.

As the car cut silently through the traffic Chris studied JC's face, briefly illuminated as they passed in and out of the circles of streetlights. JC looked tired, a little, his mouth smiling smaller, his eyes not shining like they usually did. Or maybe it was just that it was hard to see in the mostly dark car and Chris was imagining things, hoping for something that wasn't there. He leaned against Lance who patted his knee with a decided lack of attention, plans for some big project or another shuffling through his fingers.

Justin started talking, laughter in his voice, shooting a quick conspiratorial grin at Chris. Chris grinned back, briefly, and felt his smile fade as Justin's voice wound into its pitch, offering up some patently ludicrous story to JC, a punchline waiting to happen. JC's face under the flickering streetlights was attentive and earnest but for a moment, just as Justin reached the end of his story, his smile was amused and patient. Knowing.

Humoring.

Chris sat up then, watched as Justin finished talking and JC was surprised and everyone laughed. Joey rumpled Justin's hair and Lance murmured something to JC, passing him a few pieces of paper embossed with figures and pictures and plans. Chris wished he was somewhere far away but kept his eyes trained on the flickering patches of light that illuminated JC's face, feeling sick with knowledge he didn't want to have.

 

He didn't get a chance to talk to JC till after the show. They were worming their way through a corridor to anther corridor where people were waiting to take their picture. He touched JC's arm and felt JC pause, eyes lowered as he swung towards him.

"You knew," Chris said flatly. "When Justin pulled that shit tonight, you knew what he was doing."

JC stared at him. "Yeah," he finally said and his voice was a little hoarse and a little tentative.

"Let me guess--it makes him happy so..." and Chris dropped his voice into a syrupy sweet imitation of JC's on those last words, arching his hands the way JC did when he was trying to be conciliatory.

"That's right," JC said angrily. "It does make him happy. So what? What are you trying to say?"

Chris was often what one could call furious. He was prone to sudden sweeping bouts of anger, occasional black clouds that came and shook him with the force of their intensity, that reduced him to nothing but a shaking core of rage. But he'd never really wanted to hurt someone before. Not like he did now, seeing JC's face shaped with anger staring at him, asking him what he meant. He felt raw inside, torn up like he'd never felt, not even when Dani had stared at him with tears in her eyes and told him he'd never really tried with her at all.

"You must be pretty happy now," he said slowly, each word coming out of him in a shaking, bitter burst. "No more humoring me, right? No more going along with Chris and his plans and his--"

JC walked away. Just like that, his back was all Chris could see. Then he turned around just as suddenly and walked back. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. His eyes were blazing.

"You're so fucking determined to be unhappy," he said. "You're so fucking *blind.*"

"I'm not --"

"This is what you said you wanted," JC said helplessly, all the anger gone out of his voice. "You said......We stopped--and I." He stopped, pressed his lips together.

"You're so fucking blind," he said again, voice cracking. Then he turned and walked back down the hallway.

 

 

_xvii. the part where everyone sees what you won't_

Justin came over a few days later and refused to leave even when Chris told him to go home and even how to get there in graphically rude detail.

"Worried about you," he said instead and sprawled out on the living room floor.

"Don't be."

"You've got problems."

Chris snorted. "Yeah, and my main one is lying on my floor sucking up all the oxygen and lecturing me. Getting dumped once doesn't teach you everything about everything, J. Just because Britney --"

"You've been such a bitch recently," Justin said calmly. "Why don't you just get back together with JC already?"

"What?"

"Oh please," Justin said. "Don't even. I know you two thought you were so stealthy and shit but news flash, you're both loud-ass motherfuckers. Me and Lance and Joe are all traumatized from that time ya'll got your freak on while we were at Lance's."

"We didn't --"

"Right, cause I know I always spend my time with JC moaning things like  _harder, harder_."

"Oh."

"Yeah," Justin said. "Like I said, loud-ass motherfuckers. I thought you were happy, dude."

Chris turned on the tv and turned it up as loud as it could go. It shut Justin up, but didn't drown out the little voice inside him. The one that said,  _I was_.

 

 

_xviii. the master plan_

Chris decided he should box JC's stuff up. It was odd, seeing JC's things around his home, like he was waiting for something. And he wasn't. He and JC were never really dating anyway. Besides, it wasn't like JC had that much stuff. It would probably all fit in a shoebox. JC really was cheap unless it came to leather pants or pink rhinestone ruffled shirts. Or wine he wouldn't drink. Or funky sable hair paintbrushes. Crazy ass. Chris missed him.

That decided things. He was missing JC and it had to stop. Or at least let up a little. All things got better with time, or some crap like that.

It didn't take him long to get everything together. He found a couple of pairs of shoes, a book, a t-shirt, a paintbrush. He figured he had everything ready to go. He knew he should take it over to JC's house, be mature and rational and seek closure or whatever. He decided to just mail everything to him instead. He glanced around one last time, half hoping to see something of JC's hidden almost out of sight, proof that he'd been there, that Chris hadn't removed all traces of him, that JC was still in his life, even if in the smallest of ways, in something left behind. But the only thing left was hanging on the wall, the picture JC had given him for his birthday.

Chris went over and looked at it, trying to decide if giving it back would make a statement or just be spiteful. What a stupid gift, he thought sourly. A picture. He should have known from that that JC -- he pulled the picture off the wall, ready to drop it in the box.

Stupid Lou, he thought, grimacing like he always did at the flashing light of his braces, at the memory of Lou's voice braying they were 'necessary.' He looked at his face, younger and more hopeful, followed that long ago self's gaze. Out off into the distance, dreaming. Out off into the distance, right past JC. Right by JC.

Right at JC.

He was looking at JC. It was a surprise, a lightening jolt of truth inside him. He was watching JC, not looking off at some far away dream. It was always there, what he felt for JC, waiting until he was willing to let himself see it. He squinched his eyes up, telling himself that the sudden sharp sting was an allergic reaction to whatever cheap-ass frame JC had bought.

JC. He looked young in the picture, familiar but not, his features blurred by hope that hadn't been totally erased until the realization of what Lou had done had hit all of them. Look how unguarded his eyes were, Chris thought, staring at the open hope and longing in JC's gaze. He was always envisioning things the rest of them were afraid to wish for. He tapped the glass lightly, looking at JC's eyes dreaming at something back over by Chris's head. Actually kind of at his head.

Actually kind of at him.

JC was looking at him.

The look in his eyes was familiar and the smile on his face was one Chris had seen countless times before when JC looked at him. Fondness, understanding--his hands sweated over the glass.

Hope, he thought, and stared at JC's captured smile.

 

He went to JC's house. He rang the doorbell. Then he knocked on the door. Then he fiddled with the mail slot. Then he rang the doorbell again.

"Ok, ok," JC hollered, yanking open the door.

"Oh," he said when he saw Chris, his eyes going wide, "hey."

"Hey."

 

"You're--"  
"I'm--"

 

"What's up?" JC asked, and then cleared his throat.

"You're not gullible," Chris said slowly.

JC blinked at him, and Chris handed him the picture.

"No," JC said quietly, taking the picture and tracing its edges carefully. "I'm not. But I did have a master plan." He grinned a little, crookedly, and Chris's heart pounded in his chest, hoping.

"I'm an idiot," he said.

"Pretty much."

"You know I--" Chris said and paused. He was just so not good at this kind of stuff. But JC knew him so surely he'd guess what he was trying to say. Except JC was shaking his head and looking confused. Chris sighed. Of all the times for JC to go clueless on him it figured that now would be-- "Oh." he said.

JC grinned at him again.

"Fine. I. You know...I.. "

JC had one eyebrow raised, waiting.

"You're pretty fiendish," Chris told him.

"I love you too," JC said. His smile was broad and sunny, enough to break Chris's heart and put it back together again.

Chris took a step forward and JC's arms rose up to meet him.


End file.
